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October 18, 2003
art
The start of a few interesting openings around London.
Tate Modern's Turbine Hall has reopened featuring Eliasson's Weather Project.
It is good, but doesn't quite excite the apocolyptic gushing offered by the Guardian (and also on the Late Review last night). The piece works well as you enter, until the bridge. As you get closer, it seems more mundane. The clouds are a very thin smog - more interesting when observed than when inside. The ceiling is interesting; the Turbine Hall feels happier at double height. The edges of the mirrored panels shatter the illusion, though, of both the height and the sun.
Typically, give people a sun and they sunbathe.
I think the piece would be more interesting if continually open, a 24 hour sun, a perpetual dusk: more resonance if the sun wasn't shining so brightly itself in London. I walked past late last night, and the brief glimpse you can get when shuttered showed the sun still shining...
Yesterday I got the opportunity to have a preview of the new Hayward Gallery, and the Saved! exhibition (open to the public from the 23rd).
It's fantastic. I have always thought the Hayward to be probably the greatest gallery in London - the kind of art I like works well with the architecture (exhibitions of small paintings or prints don't, with too many people an inch away from the work), and curatorship for the past 5 years has been of exceptional standard.
Disclaimer: I love the South Bank architecture. The lit-up National Theatre at night, and the walkways of the Queen Elizabeth Hall and Hayward Gallery are stunning examples of late 20th century buildings (one of my beefs, the river entrance to the Festival Hall, is being addressed; my other, the closure of the roof of the Queen Elizabeth Hall, which could be a balmy room garden, isn't).
The Hayward has been slightly softened by the new pavillion and entrance. The workmanlike double-height box is, well, forgettable, and I feel the upstairs space is a bit lost. The Dan Graham pavillion, on the other hand, is wonderful. I wasn't expecting much, but the potential mirrored vista is stunning. You get reflections from far up and down the river, a great opened-up view down to the Tate Modern, passersby and buses from Waterloo Bridge, and you can look up, and still see the building you're part of. It in some ways celebrate the old building, rather than trying to hide it.
A few caveats - the doors to get outside the pavillion were locked, which was a real shame, and I'd like to see a bit more seating, inside and out, as it is definitely a place to sit and contemplate. The cafe has been moved to the ground floor, which means that you can't get a coffee part way through the exhibition, and you can't sit and sip watching London go by. Worst of all, it's become a Starbucks (supposedly a bespoke one, as it sells wine).
So, to the exhibition. Firstly, I'm really happy. The galleries haven't been altered at all. People always complain about its quirks, like the ramp, or the outdoor courts, but I've seen several shows use them to their full potential. The walls in this exhibition are painted gold, silver and bronze, and I have to say the works really sing (and the curators seemed to be really happy with it too). I've never seen paintings look so expressive. The design has been created by Piers Gough of CZWG Architects.
It's an odd mixture of works that the Art Fund has helped various museums and galleries buy. It takes a loose definition of art, with a lot of paintings, prints and photographs, but with pieces of ethnography, design, and historical interest. I'm not a particular fan of large swathes of old paintings, and it helps breaking them up with other interesting pieces, often related to the time or setting of nearby works.
The organisation is, errr, bold. Items are grouped in galleries by the period in which they were bought with the help of the Art Fund over the last 100 years (all the tags show how much the works were bought for too). What is interesting is that this has allowed the curators to bring together works based on similar themes, and put them next to each other. Pieces have come from 74 different collections - you are unlikely ever to see something from the Tate hanging next to something from National Gallery hanging next to something from the V&A.
As for the pieces themselves? It's a greatest hits of a wide variety of styles. Even the most hardened art hater should find something to pique their interest. I have an unfortunate feeling this is going to be very busy, but it is wholehartedly worth a trip.
A quick (now not) last chance to see - Video Acts at the ICA is a great exhibition of 'single-channel video works', mainly from the 60s and 70s. A great historical grounder to, say, the Viola and Neuman rooms at Tate Modern (and to link to the Hayward - the Dan Graham videos are really interesting). Exhibition has been extended to the 9th November.
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